


sending love to you

by doriangrays (orphan_account)



Category: NCT (Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Asian Family Trees, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-27 14:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19792402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/doriangrays
Summary: It's a tradition in the university to give out a blue rose to the person who you thought made your whole stay in the university special.





	sending love to you

**Author's Note:**

> for nct write write 2019. title from [what you waiting for](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouqjZJnwqA) by z-girls

Really, Ten supposes, being in love was sort of like having a burnt hand. It nagged you when you thought about it and severely impeded your ability to masturbate.

The burnt hand had occurred to him only once within his living memory, which was either a testament to how carefully he conducted himself around hot surfaces, or how spotty his memory was.

It was Lunar New Year's, which meant a gathering with all the multitudes of relatives on his mother's side of the family (the King's Birthday was spent with his dad's side of the family, usually at Great Auntie Davika's house in Chiang Mai). It, per usual for the last five years, was held in Qingdao, at his Uncle (actually a third cousin of his mother's, apparently) Zitao's mansion, which meant that the week beforehand, their house in Bangkok would be thrown into a flurry of activity, Tern yelling loud demands for her DS or his mother searching for passable clothing for everyone to wear in order to make a good impression, since of course, it was the Spring Festival.

Uncle Zitao had more rooms in his mansion than what he knew to do with. When Tern asked him once why he had such a big house, their uncle had, with a couple of bottles of Tsingtao under his belt, had shrugged and then mumbled that he wanted to “stunt on them broke hoes” to evident amusement of them all, but mostly Chenle, the youngest of their cousins. Chenle had taken to repeating the phrase around the living room in varying inflections till his mother, Aunt Jia, had put an end to the entire affair. She then confiscated the beers from Zitao and called one of Zitao's butlers or maids or something of the sort to escort the kids (which at that point in time meant Ten and Kun and Kahei, who at thirteen felt too old to hang out with the likes of ten year old Yukhei, Kunhang, Yuqi, and Tern, nine year old Renjun, and eight year old Chenle) to a playroom that was more like a mini-arcade in appearance.

It went without saying that Zitao was fabulously wealthy, and probably one of the people who were caricaturized in  _ Crazy Rich Asians  _ because that was exactly what he was, though no one knew how exactly he came by his money- not even Aunt Meiyong, who made it a point to know everyone's business and had hosted the family gatherings before Zitao upgraded from living in a cramped dorm room with three other guys to a gated house with a pool and a helicopter deck when he was in his senior year of college.

_ (A popular theory amongst the cousins alleged that it was a sugar daddy who died under mysterious circumstances who left Zitao the mansion and an income of over five hundred grand a year.) _

Despite the multitudes of servants Zitao had waiting around, looking after the kids, cleaning up after the partygoers, maintaining the gardens, driving them around shopping, and all that, the kitchen, during the holidays, was always commandeered by the family.

Tern was embarrassing him in front of the great-aunties and their grandma who were simpering over how  _ Yongqin is quite popular with all the girls, isn't he? Tell us more, Yongji  _ and how Tern was all too glad to pull up grainy videos of him singing and dancing to  _ Baby _ by Justin Bieber or Taeyang's  _ I Need a Girl _ to brandish at the older women, who snickered as they beheld the immortalization of his humiliation, if snickering were something retirement-home aged grannies did.

Face as red as his hair had been during the airing of  _ Teen Superstar _ the previous year, Ten excused himself and then slunk into the kitchen, where his eyes darted around looking for potential snacks of mango jerky or dried tofu to sneak a bite of.

Unfortunately, his mother had, through carrying him in her womb for nine months and then caring for him for sixteen more years, developed some sort of sixth sense as to what he was up to at any given moment as well as his location. This meant that she looked up, face brightening, and then exclaimed in Thai, “Ten! Help out Auntie Pim and I out for a bit. Will you turn off the heat and then move the chicken broth to the other side of the stove?”

_ (Like Ten's mother was Chinese and moved to Thailand after marrying Ten's father, Auntie Pim was Thai and moved to Hong Kong after marrying Xuxi's father. She was an amazing cook who opened a Thai restaurant in Hong Kong, and the women of the family had been all too glad to divulge to her their traditional recipes that had been kept jealously guarded over the generations. In exchange, Auntie Pim provided them with Thai recipes and discounts at the restaurant.) _

The pot of chicken broth was bubbling, steam puffing out from the sides almost cartoonishly. With a bare right hand, Ten grasped onto one of the two handles that protruded from the side of the pot like ears, and then immediately let go, falling back and almost stepping on Yuqi in the process (who had probably just scampered into the kitchen for similar purposes as Ten himself had before being held hostage by her own father, another of Ten's uncles (this time with the less convoluted association of merely being his mother's brother).

The vent fans all ran at full speed, loud whooshing comparable to that of an airplane taking off, hot oil sizzling and crackling on every pan. Ten's yelp and hisses of pain were lost in the clamor, but his mother had merely glanced at him with pity, before instructing Ten to the bathroom so he could run some cold water on his hands.

He came away from that experience with a red stripe on the base of his thumb that faded only after a few months to a shiny line that felt smoother than the rest of the skin surrounding it, and was a shade or two darker.

The pain was far more prominent, however, despite lasting for much shorter. His mother had berated Tern for sitting around doing nothing (Ten would argue that it wasn't nothing, seeing as it was her embarrassing him) and then rattled off instructions for helping Ten, who'd made faces at Tern behind their mother's back before twisting his features into a truly pitiful mask of agony as he cradled his burnt hand.

It felt exactly like it sounded, which was to say, it burnt. If he didn't think too much about it, his palm felt uncomfortably warm. If he did think about it or if he shifted his hand even slightly, it was as if a sudden and furious itch welled up beneath his skin, so much that it hurt.

So yeah, not fun.

♥♥♥

As for the falling in love part, well,

He went overseas for college, studying in Hong Kong and cutting rooming costs by mooching off of Uncle Wong and Auntie Pim. Weishen University was the alma mater of his mother, and a good amount of his uncles and aunties. Ten, however, was the first member of the family to go to WU's School of Performing Arts as a major in dance. Kun — who'd graduated early from high school, curse his overachieving ass — had stayed long enough to get Ten situated after orientation despite having only a semester's advantage over his cousin, before then fucking off to Seoul on an exchange program, where he frequently facetimed, enough for it to have become a ritual and for Kun's roommate to have developed a festering dislike of Ten.

"Hey, I think your roommate hates me," Ten tells Kun one evening over Skype.

"You think?" Kun raises an eyebrow as he bites down on a piece of ramen.

"Hah," Ten replies with a mouth full of rice. "Well, I think I know that your roommate hates me. He keeps making faces when you call me."

As if to prove his point, indistinct Korean comes from off screen, prompting an answer from Kun. That preceded the appearance of the face of a slender-eyed boy who makes an expression of distaste at the screen from its corner before retreating.

"Don't mind him," Kun informs him. "Doyoung's just homesick and stressed."

"Damn, man, so am I," Ten says with a mouthful of curry. "He isn't special."

Kun makes a noise like a pissed off cat. "Don't spray the screen!"

"Oh, okay, sorry," Ten sighs, wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Okay, but to be very fair, you aren't the president of the chorus and also not the general student council president and you don't do any extracurriculars besides dance team."

Ten is silent for a few moments before he throws up his hands. "I mean, I guess."

Another voice comes from offscreen, deeper than Doyoung's, and Kun turns towards it, shouting a response in Korean before facing Ten again, an apologetic expression on his face. "Hey, sorry," he says. "I promised a few guys from the ISA that I'd watch movies with them today. You don't mind, do you?"

Ten hides his disappointment. "I mean, we call every week anyways. Don't sweat it."

A head pokes itself through the crack in the door. "Hey Kun," greets the newcomer. "Momo wants to know if she can start the movie?"

"Oh, sure!" Kun says, nodding as he gestures towards where Ten is sitting. "Uh, Johnny, meet Ten, my cousin," he switches over to English.

"Charmed," Ten says, with a grin.

Johnny gives the screen (and by extension, Ten's face) a once-over before he smiles at the other boy. "Nice to meet you, too. Sorry to steal Kun away."

With an airy forced chuckle that Ten thinks would better suit a socialite at a party where one had to endure the shit-talking from other  _ haute ton _ members, he waves it off. "Oh, don't sweat it. We chat every week anyways, you're allowed to force him to be social."

"Good to know, Ten," Johnny grins, brushing hair out of his eyes, and oh, that was  _ adorable _ .

Very lamely, Ten replies, “Hah. I’ll talk to you next week, Kun!”

He then disconnects, trying to suppress the sort of giddy feeling bubbling in his chest that he doesn't know how to identify but can only compare to the feeling that he got once when he checked his email and got the notification for his college acceptance.

"Fuck," he sighs, and then slams his head down onto the desk.

"Ten!" calls up Auntie. "Everything all right, dear?"

"Yeah, just peachy!" Ten shouts back. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing, I was just wondering since I heard something loud."

"I'm fine," Ten yells back.

He was, in fact, not, because he never knew someone who looked so much like Gong Yoo could exist and holy fuck, Johnny was  _ hot _ and his smile was so fucking nice and —

Call Ten a hopeless romantic, if you will.

♥♥♥

“Ten, you’re a hopeless romantic,” Kahei says with something akin to pity in her eyes the next day at lunch after Ten spends their trek over to the restaurant waxing poetic about the way Johnny’s hair hangs into his eyes and his nose wrinkles when he laughs.

Ten makes a noise of annoyance behind his mouthful of  _ chasiu  _ pork and rice. “Don’t tell your mom.”

“Tell mom what?” interjects another voice. Yukhei flings his entire long-limbed, 15 year old body down into the seat next to Ten the moment after, picking up a slice of Ten’s pork with his fingers and then popping it into his mouth. Ten hisses in protest.

“Where’s Kunhang?” Kahei deigns to ask about their third sibling instead, stabbing her chopsticks into her  _ chow fun _ .

“Oh.” Yukhei grins at his elder sister and Ten gets the feeling that the news is not going to be anything good. “He’s on a date.”

Forget Yukhei being a nosy food thief. Ten snaps his head towards him in poorly concealed curiosity.

“What? A date?” Kahei says at the same time Ten asks,   
  
“Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

“Two boyfriends,” Yukhei confirms with a grin. “Dejun’s a sophomore and Yangyang is a freshman.”

“TWO?” Kahei’s eyes widen.

“A fucking fifteen year old has more game than I do,” Ten sighs miserably, prodding at a slice of pork.

Yukhei snorts. “Weak,” he says, and then starts choking on the pork he’d nicked from Ten because he breathed in too fast.

“Serves you right,” Ten mutters, giving him a hearty thump on the back as Kahei force feeds him water.

Yukhei wheezes in response.

♥♥♥

Kahei had her own room, which would have been unfair had it not been half the size of the boys’.

“A small room for small people,” Ten had remarked as he flops over onto the bed, prompting a side eye of vague irritation.

“I’m doing something,” she says vaguely before going back to her math problems, which probably meant she was doodling in her notebook because except for Yukhei, all four kids under the household were gays of the “can't do math” variety.

“Kahei,” Ten whined back, drawing out the last syllable. “Listen to me whine about a cute boy and you can bother me all you want about your crushes too. Please.”

“This is a McDonald’s drive-thru,” Kahei deadpanned.

“No it’s not, it’s your room and Johnny is the prettiest boy on earth,” Ten replies.

“You met him over facetime with shitty internet connection and for a span of maybe a minute,” she reasoned.

Ten either hums or whines-- he isn’t quite sure of which. “Yeah…”

Kahei twists around for the pillow she uses to pad her chair and then throws it at Ten’s face in such a lightning-flash movement that Ten squeaks, falls off the bed, and then looks around for a one-eyed Samuel L. Jackson doppelganger.

“What was that for,” he huffs once he was sure there was no chance of having made fun of himself in front of any potential Nick Furies that were recruiting for the Avengers Initiative, just to make sure, because Kahei suddenly gained reflexes and accuracy at throwing shit. Obviously, radioactive spiders were afoot here.

“Stop being stupid,” Kahei retorts.

Ten makes a noise of disdain and sticks his tongue out at her before he stands up, dusts himself off, and then leaves the room.

♥♥♥

Yeah, in retrospect, maybe it was less Kun going, “It looks good on your record to have studied overseas, you know? Cause then people know you’ve had a variety of experiences. It’s enriching.” over his welcome-back dinner (hotpot and beer for those who wanted it, Kahei and the twins choosing exorbitantly priced bobas instead) than it was the memory of a minute-long conversation and a charming smile than makes Ten announce, “I sort of want to do the study abroad program next semester.”

“Oh?” Uncle said, raising an eyebrow over a swig of Tsingtao. “Weishen has a study abroad in Los Angeles, right? Maybe you could go to the dance studios over there.”

Ten cleared his throat, spearing a slice of luncheon meat that’s been permeated with chili oil. “Well, I was thinking about Korea, actually. Like Kun-ge.”

Kahei wiggles her eyebrows at Ten as she sips rather exaggeratedly at her strawberry rose boba. Beside him, Yukhei elbows him, and further down, he feels the thump-thump-thumping of Kunhang’s shoes against the back of the booth. The twins are making stupid faces at him. He’s checked, turning slightly to the side to see Yukhei and Kunhang’s eyes coin-round and teeth bared in matching grins. He hates this.

Kun glances between the quartet of his younger cousins and the telepathic conversation they’re having that mostly consists of Ten pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes threateningly at them, and sets down his chopsticks on the edge of his tray. “Okay. Is there something I’m missing or?”

“Ten-ge got into Kpop again,” Xuxi announces with the fattest dope-eating grin one could possibly muster on their face. “Let him live his best Koreaboo life. Go to see the Coex Artium. Meet Byun Baekhyun in the flesh.”

Ten sighs internally. At least it was better than Kahei going, “He fell into deep and profound infatuation with your roommate, who he’s seen a total of once on FaceTime.”

“Shut up,” Ten grouses, ducking his head and pretending to be embarrassed. “Oh my god, I literally. Cannot stand you.”

Yukhei barks out a laugh and then says in a ridiculously nasal voice-- on god, Ten swears he doesn’t sound like that-- “Flops, stream Love Me Right by Exo.”

“Ten, are you sure?” Auntie asks. “You know it’s not good to be influenced so much by celebrities, right?”

“Yes, Auntie,” Ten mutters. “They’re just making fun of me, that’s all.”

The conversation veers somewhere else afterwards, to Ten’s relief, and they spent the rest of the time interrogating Kunhang over his two boyfriends-- “TWO?” Kun nearly yelled, drawing glances from some nearby patrons.

Ten snickers to himself quietly now the attention is off him.

♥♥♥

The day he leaves is overcast and sort of shitty-looking to be honest. The air feels soupy, and the wind doesn’t exactly howl, but its presence is duly noted. Yukhei and Kunhang practically drag him out of bed that morning with the exuberance characteristic only of teenaged boys or golden retrievers after having heard the phrase “walk the dog”.

Ten, self-identified cat that he was, hisses in response to the racket before someone pulls him from the twin bed. “Let me sleep,” he whines.

“No can do,” retorts Kahei’s smug voice as she flicked on the light.

Downstairs, on the first floor, Kun’s singsong voice carried up through the sounds of Auntie and Uncle’s voices and the clattering of dishes in the kitchen. “Ten is going overseeeeeeeaaaaas!”

Ten shudders. Seems like Kun is embracing his image as an old hag nowadays. He flops over onto his bed, kicks his blanket off, then performs something intermediate between a shimmy and wiggle, somehow landing feet-first. He yawns, and then flips Yukhei off.

Kunhang, helpful as ever and not quite yet tainted by Yukhei’s irreverence towards his superiors, hands him the clothes Ten left hanging over his chair. “Thank you, minion,” he says grandly, whisking off into the bathroom. He washes his face, brushes through his hair, and then puts his clothes on. Nothing too fancy, because even though skinny jeans make his thighs look amazing, he doesn’t want his legs to be constricted by denim at a cruising altitude of 12 kilometers. So sweatpants it is, and a loose t-shirt. He throws on a hoodie on top of it for good measure, because he can’t stand the cold, and then goes out through the other entrance to the bathroom, the one that faced the hall.

He’s in rather high spirits, shovelling in pickled vegetables and porridge into his mouth liberally, fighting Xuxi for slices of tea-braised egg and spring onion pancakes. Uncle sends the twins off to school and Kahei and Kun leave for class; Auntie drives him to the airport.

"Have fun and keep up with your studies, Tennie," she says, grinning. Affectionately, she ruffles his hair before kissing his forehead, and Ten, in a wave of gratefulness, reaches forward to hug his aunt before he lets go and walks towards the terminal.

He's cleared through security and has his passport checked before his phone starts buzzing with messages.

**[Yukhei]**

**gl**

**[Ten]**

**aren't u in class lmao**

**[Yukhei]**

**n what about it**

The next is a more encouraging message from Kunhang, who says,

**[Kunhang]**

**you can do it!!! jiayou ten-ge!!!!!!!!!!**

**[Ten]**

**thnx kiddo I always knew u were my fave cousin**

Kahei's message comes next:

**[Kahei]**

**Even though you're annoying as fuck imma miss you**

**Wait nvm Kunhang says you called him your fave cousin**

**Missing you status: revoked**

**[Ten]**

**Wbk tell me some more about how wonderful I am**

Lastly, Kun, far too helpful for his own good, sends over a list of links detailing basic tourists' Korean and also a notepad screenshot of tips for the classes-- do not text during Professor Hwang’s course, sit at the front of Professor Jung’s, suck up to Professor Kim for better grades, join the ISA, etc. etc.

Ten types out a quick message of thanks before the intercom echoes with a call to board the plane. Putting his phone on airplane mode, Ten gets up, tugging his suitcase after him.

♥♥♥

The in-flight entertainment could have been better, and his seatmate snores. Ten finds it a testament to his own willpower for having endured that. Once his phone latches onto a signal again, it buzzes twice and then goes silent. Ten feels vaguely affronted by that, but opens his phone to view the notifications.

**[Kun]**

**Oh by the way, I asked one of my friends from Seoul if he could show you around. His name is Johnny, he’s super tall, like Yukhei’s height. He’ll be holding a sign with your name on it, so he ought to be hard to miss.**

Oh, heavens.

**[Unknown]**

**Hey, this is Johnny. Kun gave me your number and flight info, I hope you don’t mind. I’m here at the airport baggage claim center with a sign! Just lmk when you’ve arrived.**

Ten forgoes replying to either of the texts, instead opening up a new one.

**[Ten]**

**KAHEI WEEWOOWEEWOOWWWDLKSJFSJ**

Thankfully, the woman in question responds only a minute later.

**[Kahei]**

**What,,**

**[Ten]**

**JOHNNYA SFFLKDGLKDJGLK**

**Kun**

**He got like… JOHNNY to show me around**

**[Kahei]**

**And?**

**[Ten]**

**I am dressed like I’m five steps from the retirement home.**

**Kahei.**

**I can’t do this.**

**[Kahei]**

**Yes you can. U know why?**

  1. **cause this is a foreign country where you have only the most basic grasp of the language**



**[Ten]**

**damn ma drag me some more wontcha**

**[Kahei]**

**also stop being chicken omg that’s literally your crush**

**the ten i know isn’t a coward**

**[Ten]**

**okay u kno what**

**bet**

“Ungrateful,” Ten grumbles as he exits out of Kahei’s message. He opens up Johnny’s and manages to reply like a normal fucking person--

**[Ten]**

**Just landed! Thanks btw for doing this**

**[Johnny]**

**It’s no biggie. I get how u feel and I promised Kun to take care of you**

Ten giggles to himself a bit, careful not to bump into any passerby as he scans the signs that thankfully, also had translations. Five minutes later, he’s at the entrance to the baggage claim area, and he has enough presence of mind to text Johnny again--

**[Ten]**

**I’m here at baggage claim!**

**[Johnny]**

**Awesome, I think I see you.**

Ten looks up, and sure enough, a tall boy is folding a sign that says in giant block letters, “ _ Li Yong Qin” _ across it to wave at him. Ten slips his phone into his pocket and then stride across the floor, plastering a smile onto his face.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m Ten.”

The other boy grins right back. “Hi, I’m Johnny.”

♥♥♥

They became fast friends, and Ten quickly learned to shove aside his infatuation. After all, only the "thot" part of the "dumb thot" description fit him.

Johnny was an American from Chicago, Ten finds out. He was studying communications and wanted to spend a year in Seoul to better his Korean and to become closer to his home culture. Thus was the problem with being diasporic, an immigrant child-- all that your family was, is lost in the translation to your ears in a new land, and you find yourself belonging neither here nor there. Your home country sees you as a foreigner but your peers in your new one do, too.

Ten, half Chinese and half Thai, another type of different, sympathizes.

Ten meets Yuta, an exchange student from Japan here on a soccer scholarship, who's assigned to him by the ISA to tutor him in Korean, and Annie, who prefers the name Chungha, another American, this time from Texas. He's also pleasantly surprised that Doyoung is less hostile in real life, and he gets along swimmingly with Sorn, another student from Thailand, whose father is THE ex soccer player and now politician named Big Hoy, as well.

His roommate is Taeyong, a sweet and sort of shy fashion design major, who happens to be friends with Johnny and Yuta. Ten had been polite but distant at first with the elder, too taken aback by the glower Taeyong seemed to aim at everything until the elder had finally gotten glasses-- turns out that the terrifying expression on his freakishly perfect face was merely a result of having to squint to see things.

His dance class is full of international students as well, Ten finds out, walking in on the first day and nearly getting kicked in the head by a boy trying to show off his aerials. His name was Zhengting, known affectionately amongst his Korean peers as Jungjung, and he was from Yuehua University, an elite school further to the north of Weishen. They know some people amongst the two of them, which was surprising, considering the vast population of China, but predictable as well, considering the vast reach of Chinese social circles. His cousin is going to Weishen and is Kun’s roommate.

Other coincidences include the realization that Lisa, a tall blonde dancer also from Thailand, was the childhood best friend to his cousin on the Thai side of his family, Bambam. Ten wonders if the phrase “All roads lead to Rome” ought to be replaced with “All roads lead to Ten.” Despite Kun having ordered Johnny to help him settle in, Ten finds it easy to get comfortable, to make friends despite the language barrier, and realizes that he had more connections here than he originally believed.

Ten gains a better comprehension of Korean, makes some new friends, and even got to go tour and sightseeing despite a killer workload that he worked through quickly and diligently. Coex was every bit as cool as he imagined it, and he and Johnny swore that the tall man in a face mask that breezed past them when they went in the bathroom to take ridiculously posed selfies was actually Oh Sehun in the flesh.

He celebrates the Lunar New Year with the rest of the international kids who couldn’t go home, and they bring out a myriad of food from different cultures-- Thai noodles, Chinese regional dishes, Japanese soup, and Johnny and Chungha even pitch in to break into the home economics building to shove a greased-up chicken into the oven in true American fashion. Over little glasses of soju, they toast each other, eating till they could barely move, groaning and flopping over couches as some video game theme plays on in the background, Sorn handing Yuta’s ass to him in Smash. Ten flops down next to Johnny and let his heart fill with the same buzzing that overtook his mind, warm and happy. This was not Uncle Zitao’s house, but it had the same sense of being busy and merry. Like a home, he thinks.

Just like that, a semester all too quickly passes with the end of the spring term and final exams that rendered everyone dead-eyed.

Fittingly enough, just like Johnny was the first person to welcome him to Korea, Johnny is also the last person to see him leave, driving him to the airport this time.

They fall into companionable silence in the car, an old American song playing on the radio, and Ten hums along as they switch lanes, taking exits and merging onto different expressways. Soon enough, they reached the terminal, and Johnny stops the car, parking it at the entrance. “Well, here we are,” he announces, glancing over.

Ten sighs, leaning his back against the headrest. “Thank you, Johnny.”

Johnny’s right hand lets go of the steering wheel, reaching over to hold onto Ten’s instead. “We’ll miss you.”

Ten unbuckles, pausing for a moment before he thinks,  _ fuck it  _ and then dives for the elder boy, wrapping him into a tight hug, nose buried into the crook of Johnny’s neck.

“I’ll miss you. And Taeyong. And Lisa and Zhengting and Yuta and Chungha and Momo and Meiqi and Sorn and everyone else,” he mumbles. “I’ll even miss Doyoung.”

Johnny exhales something unintelligible at first, before he says with a strained voice, “Let go, Ten, ow-- you’re crushing my ribs.”

Ten laughs as he pulls away. “I’ll text.”

“I’m counting on it.”

♥♥♥

Ten keeps his promise. Sort of. He had downloaded Kakao, and thus is regularly updated and notified of everyone’s summer breaks (he goes back to Thailand after a few more weeks in Hong Kong and snaps a few selfies of him fake-gagging as Tern pretends to feed him papaya, receiving in return some cry-laughing emojis from Johnny and a sticker of a giggling cat from Yuta. Johnny goes to Greece with his family for the summer, sending in some pictures in a tank top, gloriously tanned and muscled. Yuta returns to Osaka, his camera roll nature-filled, which Lisa responds to with pictures of her, her stepdad, and mom in Switzerland with the caption of “twinsies!!!” and the rest of the gang also seem to be spending some time with their families.

Summer passes in a blur. Ten visits Lisa and Sorn once each-- Sorn before she leaves on a tour of England, Lisa after she returns from Switzerland when she drops by to visit Bambam, too. Then sophomore year starts, and Ten is back at Weishen and Hong Kong.

Yuta and Lisa and Chungha, still in Seoul, update them regularly over the new additions to the little gang of international students while Sorn transfers to Oxford ( _ damn, that's a flex _ , Ten had congratulated her, impressed). Everyone else seems to disperse back to their home countries, and Ten finds himself missing people with the addition of a time zone difference.

Well, he misses everyone, but one person in particular.

Johnny's name originally sits at the top of his contact list, but as the months pass, it slides lower and lower. They don't really talk much except for short conversations. Johnny complains about a few classes, they send over a selfie or two from parties. Ten doesn't think too much of it; Johnny is a Pacific Ocean and what he once described to all of them as the hellish emptiness of the Midwest away at the University of Chicago. Ten has dance showcase after class after gen ed courses at Weishen. Everyone goes on with their own lives with no apparent devastation at the scant messaging, but perhaps a bit lonelier.

Summertime gets better. Ten manages to convince his parents to let him go back to Seoul, where half their friend group has decided to hang out and there's something new in his heart and his eyes when he meets Johnny outside Yuta's dorm building because the fucker forgot his keys.

Johnny smiles at him, and Ten feels that same rush of giddiness. "You look nice."

"You've grown taller," Ten responds.

"Maybe I'm still the same old me. Maybe you've gotten shorter," Johnny teased him.

♥♥♥

The start of his junior year, something changes. Ten has taken a few classical dance courses to expand his repertoire and to meet his studio hours, but to see the kids actually trained in it perform was awe-inspiring. He remembers Zhengting and nearly being kicked in the head, but that was in the space of a practice room-- casual and with less expectations.

The real deal, a graceful boy taking off into the air in a flip that looked like flying, had been jaw dropping. Ten stands up to applaud the dancer, eyes following his form as he ends in a graceful pose and then walks offstage as the curtain closes.

Dong Sicheng hails from Wenzhou and is a terrifyingly good looking man in addition to being a terrifyingly good classical dancer. Ten finds this out the next semester when they're in the same modern dance class, working on the same assignment for the end-of-year showcase.

"Kun is your cousin, right?" Sicheng asks him one day as they're going through their stretches.

"He sometimes wishes he weren't but yeah. What's up?" Ten asks him.

"I've decided who to give my rose to."

At first, Ten feels the cold wash down his spine. Shit, he hadn't realized he'd done nearly three years of school at this point. He also completely forgot about the school tradition of giving a blue rose to the person who's made the four years of college special.

Stupidly, he thinks about Johnny, and his brain's working too slow for his mouth when he asks in a tone of total incredulity, "You know Kun?"

Sicheng's face drops from hopeful to a state of dejection. "Nevermind," he says, getting to his feet. "Let's see what we got so far from the top."

Ten cracks his back and then springs to his feet to join him.

That night, Ten tosses and turns, thinking about Johnny and how much he'd like to hold his hand again. He thinks about whether or not his blue rose should go to him.

Granted, it wasn't a romantic gesture, and friends often exchanged roses to each other. At any rate, when Ten thought about it, Johnny was the most important person through his college life. People came and people went. Johnny had been there since his freshman year, a presence he felt even if they were physically separated.

It's four o clock in the morning and Ten can't sleep, mind too buzzed before his phone buzzes.

**[Johnny]**

**Hey**

**[Ten]**

**Hey, what's up**

**[Johnny]**

**You're still awake?**

**[Ten]**

**Can't sleep lol sorry**

**[Johnny]**

**Mood**

**Anyways**

**Can I ask you something**

**[Ten]**

**Idk**

**Can u**

In all seriousness, watching the text bubble appear and disappear is absolutely nerve wracking. Finally, Johnny responds.

**[Johnny]**

**U know how I'm graduating this May right**

**I want you to be there**

**If you can of course, no pressure**

Ten is taken aback, to say the least, by Johnny's request. They  _ were _ good friends, but he never imagined that Johnny would consider them so close that he'd invite Ten to his graduation.

He swipes his tongue across his lower lip, sitting up in bed. Four-thirty in the morning, exhaustion mingling with a hollowness in his chest that he wasn't sure whether to attribute to longing or to sleep deprivation.

**[Ten]**

**If you want me there I'll be there**

**[Johnny]**

**Of course I do, Ten.**

**Thank you**

Stifling a yawn, Ten's jaw cracks as sleep tugs at his consciousness.

**[Ten]**

**Goodnight**

One final message and Ten falls asleep again.

♥♥♥

His parents considered him a responsible enough kid to let him go to America with only bare minimum convincing, though his dad fussed over him quite a bit since Johnny's ceremony was just after finals were over. His aunt and uncle were fine with it too, and predictably enough, the only person who had a sense of genuine worry was Kun, partially because he was the  _ actual _ responsible cousin and partially due to a Type A personality.

Kun had sent him off to the airport that day, and he fretted more than Ten's own parents did to the point that Ten had patted him on the head and said, "Really, Kun, I will be absolutely _ fine." _

Kun sighed and just responded, "Stay safe, though. Have fun."

Chicago was absolutely fun. Johnny had picked him up from the airport, and he had driven them down to his house, complaining about the exorbitant parking fees on campus all the while and loudly expressing relief that his parents let him live at home and commute there instead. Ten laughs at him, the merriness filling in the small space. They get out of the car, Johnny going to the trunk to pull Ten's suitcase out.

"Wanna go look around campus after you get unpacked?" He asks Ten.

"Absolutely."

Johnny's mom was waiting for them, and took one look at the shorter boy before she exclaims in delight, "You must be Ten!"

Ten holds out his hand to shake, bowing his head slightly, "Hi,  _ ajumeoni _ ."

"Don't be formal," Johnny's mother insists. "Just call me Hyeyoung. Here, you must be tired, you can take off your shoes on the rack-- Youngho, hold his bags for him, show him to his room. Ten, just tell me if you need anything, okay?"

Ten smiles at her and nods again. "Thank you," he says again as Johnny grabs him by the wrist.

"C'mon," the elder says, leading him past the foyer and up a flight of stairs.

Ten is shown to the guest room, and Johnny sprawls out on the bed as he unpacks and looks around.

“How was the flight?”

“Long,” Ten says with a chuckle, setting a comb back down on the dress. “Had a switchover in LA. Went to In-N-Out.”

“Verdict?” Johnny asks, leaning up on his elbows.

“Pretty nice,” he shrugged, hanging his jacket up. “What are you doing, now that you’re graduating?”

Johnny shrugs. “My mom says there’s an internship at the radio station and I’ll be doing that for the time being. I’m really grateful, you know. She got me this job.”

“Really?” Ten hums. “Tell me about it.”

His friend grins, and the wistful look on his face, as if he were far away but oh-so-present at the same time, sends a flurry of affection through Ten’s chest. “She used to bring me to the station when she worked. I must have been, what, three or four then? But I sorta knew since I was a kid that I wanted to work as a radio DJ because of her. You?”

“The stage, baby,” Ten sighs.

“You know, Kun showed me some videos of it back when he was in Seoul,” Johnny muses. “From when you were, like sixteen or fifteen.”

Ten pauses and glares down at Johnny, who looks up at him with a shit-eating grin. “Fuck you,” he sniffs, and then tosses the shirt in his hands at him. His annoyance was tempered by a softer affection, though, when Johnny merely catches the shirt and folds it quickly before setting it aside.

“In all honesty though, bad haircut aside, you had that sort of flair,” Johnny gazes at him again with something in his eyes that Ten doesn’t really want to ask about. “It was cute.”

Ten flops down on the bed beside him. “You thought I was cute?”

Johnny lays back down, throwing his arm over his face, and doesn’t respond with anything but a grunt when Ten pokes him in the side.

Ten tries again. “Am I still cute now?”

He makes his voice sickly sweet, so Johnny could brush it off if he wanted with no injured feelings, just two friends laughing together. Instead, Johnny says, muffled behind his arm, “What if I said yes?”

“Hypothetically or literally speaking?” he asks him.

“Uh,” was the very intelligent response.

Ten looks at Johnny, lying there with red disappearing into the collar of his t-shirt, and pulls his arm down. Pink blooms over the older boy’s face, and Ten laughs at it before leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “That’s so cute, that you’re embarrassed about it.”

“You missed,” Johnny replies.

“Huh?” Ten looks down at him as hands come to rest lightly on his shoulders. “I don’t think I did.”

Johnny sighs, a smile twitching across his face, before he says, “Ten, I do think you’re cute. You’re adorable. You’re absolutely unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Tell me more, please,” Ten preens.

“I’d rather show,” he responds, as he leans up to kiss him.

♥♥♥

Senior year whizzed by so fast Ten got whiplash. An endless stream of internships followed master classes till the days blurred together so much that the only things marking the time were holiday breaks, texts from Johnny, and that one time in mid-March he got home early for once that entire school year and found Kun and Sicheng making out furiously on the couch.

It was a testament to his exhaustion that he didn’t even bat an eye at it, and merely went into his room, falling into a comatose slumber.

Yukhei declared himself as pre-med major and Kunhang went into theater. Kun graduated early with honors and decided to stay on at Weishen for a Masters in Music Education. Kahei had looked into French culinary schools for post-grad work, and found one that would accept her Nutritional Science degree.

As for Ten? He’d been applying endlessly to dance studios in the Chicago area. Johnny had texted him back around February, jubilant about being hired by the radio station. He ran a nightly broadcast with another Korean-American kid named Jaehyun Jung, and Ten had replied back with congratulations as well as an endless series of hearts.

Finals brought the anxiety levels in the Wong household to a fever pitch, but then it was all over, and the first thing Ten did afterwards was to sleep for a full 48 hours and then awoke to eat, sleep, repeat, in a brain-dead haze of relief. That went on for god-knows how long until one day, when he awoke to Kahei shaking him, all decked in red and gold, and Ten’s eyes sprang open the same time as his mouth did, with a swear word.

Ten stumbled into the bathroom with a pair of formal trousers half-on, splashing water on his face before brushing his teeth because  _ ew _ , morning breath, and then nearly falls down the stairs getting into his graduation gown.

They make it just in time, and wait in the wings of the stage for what seemed like forever, fidgeting and twiddling their thumbs as the stadium fills up, the murmuring swelling to a roar beyond the barrier.

Finally, they walk out to cheers and applause, and Ten looks up to see his entire extended family-- Uncle Zitao giving him an enthusiastic thumbs-up; his mother and father, Uncle and Auntie Wong clapping proudly; his cousins and Tern hooting and jumping up and down like it’s some sort of sports match.

And then, unexpectedly, there’s Johnny standing between his parents and his aunt and uncle.

Ten’s breath catches in his throat, and he wonders if that was what Johnny felt like when Ten stood up to clap for him in the audience of his own graduation. Then the line moves forwards again, and Ten tears his gaze away after waving to them all.

The ceremony drags on for too long. Kun speaks, and imparts his all-holy wisdom upon all of them, and Ten swears that he hears Chenle shouting, “GET IT KUN!” in the crowd before his mother sharply shushes him. Though of course, the sound was so small that it might have been his imagination. Ten hides a snicker behind his hand, and resumes the act of pretending to pay attention as a bunch of school officials come give their speeches, and then the school president and the dean.

Finally, they start calling out the names for the students to come up to receive their diplomas. But even then, Ten is in the middle of the pack of students. So he waits. And waits, till they announce, “Li Yong Qin.”

Like in a dream, Ten moves on autopilot down the aisle and up to the stage, where he shakes the school president’s hand and then has enough presence of mind to smile for pictures as the dean hands him his diploma, encased within gold- embossed scarlet leather.

He descends the stage once more, where a student association member hands him a blue rose. He traces his fingers along the dethorned stem carefully as he returns to his seat, and bites his lips as he thinks about Johnny in the crowd at his graduation.

It takes him a mere moment to decide the rose’s recipient, and then he spends the rest of the time waiting for the ceremony to be over. They cheer, the stadium’s applause reaches a new high, and then the students all toss their caps up into the air as, of all things, the soundtrack from  _ High School Musical 3: Senior Year _ begins to play.

Ten scrambles to pick his cap back up as the families are let loose, techies quickly making the chairs and stage vanish into some storage area in such a rush that Ten could almost attribute it to a Thanos snap.

The graduates begin to disperse to their waiting families, and Ten finds Kahei’s shock of pink hair and Kun’s white stole, and then three of them brave the crowds, using Yukhei and Johnny’s freakishly tall forms as a beacon. Once they reach the large cluster, the three of them are attacked with hugs.

“Congrats!” Yuqi yelps directly in someone’s ear.

“I’m so proud of youuuuu!” Uncle Zitao cups his hands around his mouth and shouts up into the sky.

Thai and Chinese and Cantonese and even some Korean, as Renjun and Auntie Meiyong speak to Johnny, mingle together into a merry buzzing, but all of the congratulations and the general noise of the stadium seems to fade away as Johnny locks eyes with him.

“Hey,” Ten finds himself saying as he approaches him.

“Hey yourself,” Johnny grins. “Congratulations.”

His family shifts and re-forms the grouping like giant human amoeba till Johnny and Ten were their own miniature satellite branching off from them. It was the most privacy they could have been afforded, anyways, and Ten wasn’t about to drag Johnny around on a wild goose chase, wasting time to find somewhere quieter.

So he takes the blue rose from where the stem had been inserted into his book, and says, “This is for you.”

Johnny looks at it for a moment, unsure, before he accepts it. “I’m supposed to be the one giving you flowers, silly.”

Ten shakes his head. “It’s a tradition here. You’re supposed to give the rose to the person who made your four years in college special.”

“Am I your person, then?” Johnny asks.

Ten laughs before he slings his free arm around Johnny’s neck, pulling him down into a kiss. “What do you think?”


End file.
